The move is being greeted by the usual terror friendly suspects such as CAIR as further evidence of "Islamophobia," and Internet "persecution," as voiced by Dawud Walid, CAIR's Michigan director:

"Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan chapter, said Asbahi was a victim of Internet rumors.

"This incident just shows how Islamophobic the political climate is right now," Walid said. "Baseless smears about a Muslim with a very good reputation was used to marginalize not only him but the community from the political process."

As we noted in the above linked August 1 piece:

"For example, Asbahi, a Chicago lawyer, is on the speakers list of the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA] [see, http://www.isna.net/Programs/pages/Speakers-Services.aspx#17].

ISNA is widely understood to be linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, the terrorist Egyptian group that created Hamas. ISNA was named last summer as an unindicted co-conspirator in the nation's largest terror prosecution, U.S. vs Holy Land Foundation and is the largest Saudi funded da'wa enterprise in North America. [source, http://www.nysun.com/article/55778?access=284047]

Asbahi's ISNA biography reveals that he is involved in numerous Islamist organizations including the Nawawi Foundation [a da'wa organization run by a convert to Islam which presents all of history from an Islamist perspective] as well as the National Association of Muslim Lawyers [NAML] which has close ties to the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR], which has been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas as well as having been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the ongoing Holy Land prosecution.

According to his ISNA bio, Asbahi also, "serves as a member of the board of directors of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding," [ISPU].

The ISPU's Islamist roots run deep..."

Indeed, Mr. Asbahi's Islamist roots run deep, so deep in fact that the MSM was finally forced to weigh in, extending [marginally...documenting his ties to a radical Chicago mosque] the research done by the independent media, thus adding weight to the growing inertia demanding his resignation.

The critical mass of this story is not really the existence of Asbahi's ties to Islamists. It hinges more on the inability [perhaps unwillingness] of the Obama campaign to distinguish between moderate and radical Muslims, because most competent counter-terrorism researchers could well have developed the same information and come to the correct conclusion, but that again is assuming that there was sufficient will to do it - a huge assumption.

Because many [some might say most] of the institutions who claim to speak for, represent or act as agents for the American Muslim community are dominated by Islamists [the list is long, including, but by no means limited to, CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, NAIT, MPAC and the MSA] it is counterproductive to use them as a universe from which to select "moderates," whatever moderate might mean in this context.

Unfortunately, knowing that spurious charges of Islamophobia and/or racism are ready to be hurled at the drop of a CAIR email barrage or phone campaign, upon any criticism leveled at Muslims, the Obama campaign's timidity in this matter, though not excusable, follows a pattern already made nauseatingly familiar by the actions of dozens of governmental agencies, branches of the military, local police departments, interfaith church groups, and NGOs, who regularly meet with, sponsor and grant undeserved legitimacy to these bad players.

Therefore perhaps the correct answer to the question [disingenuously] posed by CAIR's Dawud Walid, "If someone like Mr. Asbahi can't be vetted to work for the Obama campaign, then who can?" might be, "The process of finding authentic "moderate" Muslims is really the responsibility of the American Muslim community, however it should be obvious by now that they will never come from organizations whose ideological ties to Islamic extremism are so clear and palpable."